Tiny Texan farming town rocked by tragedy

SUTHERLAND Springs is a tiny south-east Texas farming town of 683 where “everybody knows everybody”, doors are left unlocked and Sunday is set aside for worship.

About 50 people walked through the red wooden door of its First Baptist Church for an 11am service yesterday and within 20 minutes, almost all of them had been shot.

Twenty-six were killed and at least 20 injured when former bible studies teacher Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, opened fire inside the modest white wooden building with a Ruger AR50 assault rifle.

Video from inside the church filmed at the same time the Sunday before showed a guitarist gently strumming along with a church choir led from onstage by a young woman.

Children sat with their parents in the wooden pews and sang along. Someone’s motorbike was set up in front of the pulpit.

But yesterday, Pastor Frank Pomeroy, whose 14-year-old daughter died, said he feared almost “every one” of his close friends had also been killed.

As news of yesterday’s tragedy spread, more than 100 residents gathered in a local community centre to learn the fate of their loved ones and find comfort together.

Petrol station employee Carrie Matula was among them and she described: “Just shock and dismay and mourning and lots of people praying together and praying for their neighbours and their loved ones”.

“This is a very small town,” she said.

“Everybody knows everybody, this is just devastating. It’s going to change the whole dynamic of this area.”